TTC Buses In Head On Collision At Wilson Station [With Photos & Video By Me]

Today, I was sitting at work minding my own business when I saw a tweet from a local news agency:

“BREAKING: Several people have been injured in a head-on crash involving two TTC buses at Wilson Avenue and Wilson Heights Boulevard.”

Right afterward, as I mused whether or not to go check out the scene because it was 2 minutes from me my friend ReTweeted a tweet by a woman who is a “[news agency name removed] Senior Assignment Editor, overnight news anchor, sometimes reporter” (taken from her Twitter bio) that read:

So I figured what the heck I would head over there and take some pictures with my trusty BlackBerry Torch 9800 and ideally they would be on the local news agency’s TV channel and almost definitely (so I thought) on their Twitter feed which would be really cool.

The local news agency did indeed use one of my pictures in their story when the news was still fresh. Now, however, my picture is no longer there replaced by a video of Toronto Police Traffic Services Constable Hugh Smith and the scene.

I also got video of Toronto Police Traffic Services Constable Hugh Smith on hand to speak to the media. Basically, when the media’s video cameras started rolling I figured I may as well add my BlackBerry Torch 9800 into the mix and record too. This is the exact interview/comments that the Constable gave to the major media outlets who were there (at least the first time, right after he finished with us he started the same interview again with a new set of cameras). My version is completely unedited. Here it is posted to YouTube.

As I left Wilson Station parking lot to walk back to my car (it was a 2 minute drive vs a 15 minute walk and I didn’t want to pay a day’s worth of parking for 20 minutes I was going to be there). I noticed this gentleman using the parking lot of Wilson Station to sunbathe. I do not know if this is a common occurrence during the summer months but I have never seen it before. Maybe with gas prices going up the subway station parking lot is going to be THE go to staycation destination for Toronto.

Do you think he has a cooler in the car? (I assume that is his car) If he doesn’t what if he gets thirsty or hungry? Do you think he puts on a tshirt and sandals, pays to go into the station and buys something at the kiosks in there? Or maybe he walks out to Wilson and goes to a variety store there? I wonder…

Back to the bus crash:

CTV Toronto picked up my pictures and also used one of them for their story here “14 people in hospital after two TTC Buses Crash” (and I have a screenshot to the left). They didn’t (as far as I know) ask someone to go out there if they were in the area but had the decency to credit me with the picture – saying it was taken by “(Dan Levy for CTV News)” – which I think is a pretty cool way to put it.

I am actually friends with someone who works at CTV and when he saw my pictures on my Twitter stream he sent me a Direct Message asking if they could use my photo. That is a classy way to do it in my opinion. They also have video on the page by my picture is still there. It isn’t front and center anymore but that is just fine as far as I am concerned.

CBC Toronto picked up my pictures and used one of them for the story here “Toddler among 14 hurt after Toronto buses crash” and the picture is still there as of the writing of this post. Check out the screenshot to the right and you will see it there too still front and center even though they DO have their own video there below it. They also tagged it with an attribution to me – as I asked be done on Twitter – and it reads “(Courtesy of @TheDanLevy)“.

The National Post used one of my photos, told me they had used it via Twitter, attributed it to me, and subsequently took it down.

I think if you are going to crowdsource your reporting remember who you are getting your information from and treat them well or they won’t be as likely to provide you with that info the next time – even if they’re right near the scene of that piece of news.

This post originally contained the name of the local news agency and a link to their tweets but I have since removed it because I feel there is no reason to call them out specifically and I was pretty annoyed when I originally wrote this post.

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